The greenhouse plants bedded out in early summer should now be in full flower - scarlet geraniums, heliotropes, verbenas, and lobelias, while the spring - sown annuals, especially China asters, French and African marigolds, and mignonette, will be making beds and borders gay. The time of flowering of these, and of biennials, may be prolonged by cutting off decayed flower-stems and seed-pods; this operation is also necessary on account of the appearance of the plant, and should be carefully attended to; but we can actually get a double crop from some flowers, the Canterbury bells, for instance, if the blossoms are cut off when they fade. At the base of each flower-stem there is a small green bud, which blooms after the withered blossoms have been removed; - the colours are paler, but the plant may be thus kept in flower till October. This pruning, and training, and tying-up of flower-stems is not our only autumn work ; for ere the damp, cold days commence there may be a renewal of spring's pleasant task - sowing seeds; for "Surely seeds of autumn In spring-time clothe the ground."

"Select, for the purpose of sowing seeds in autumn, (September is the best month,) an open, airy spot, away from where fallen leaves are likely to gather in heaps by the wind. The soil should not be dug more than three inches deep, and the seed should be sown thin; a deep bed is likely to encourage the seedlings to grow too fast and bulky, and so make them more liable to be cut with frost, and if they are thick in the bed, the one helps to draw up the other, too weak and spindly. The best thing in the world to cover seed - beds in the autumn, is one - half light soil, and one-half finely sifted coal ashes, from which the very fine dust and the rough cinders are taken. The red and white Clarkia pulchella are the only two Clarkias worth growing, and no winter kills them when self-sown. Collinsia bicolor and C. grandiflora are the two best of that family; they also are hardy enough to withstand most winters. The two yellow E'schscholtzias are as hardy as wheat or barley, and, though not annuals, they do much better if sown and treated as such, first in September, and, secondly, about the middle of April; if they are to be transplanted, it should be done when they are quite young. The blue and spotted Nemophila insignis and maculata are the best of them, and the whitish one, N. atomaria, third best. They all pass over almost any winter, and come into bloom before April is out. Eucharidium continuum and a seed-sport of it called grandiflorum, are among the first gems that ought to be grown in any garden, and they stand a smart winter; to say that they are diminutives of the red or purple Clarkia, will give an idea of their size and flowers. Godetia Lindleyana and rubicunda are as good as they are gay, and as hardy as a Scotch crocus. They are the best of a long list of godetias, and they will be the brighter in flower, and more manageable in plant, if they are planted in the very poorest soil in the kingdom; but, recollect, if so poor, it must be deep and well worked. You might call a hard, dry bank poor, and no annual would get a holding on it, and still it might be so good as to grow an oak. Stinted growth is quite a different thing from subdued growth caused by poor, sandy soil well tilled. . . . Erysimum Pirofskianum, a tall yellow flower, like a turnip-flower, when sown in September, planted out at the beginning of March, and trained down to the surface of the bed as it grows, comes into bloom at the beginning of May, and lasts till midsummer, or longer, and, so treated, is one of the very finest beds ever seen in May; but if allowed to grow its own way, you might just as well have a bed of seed turnips. . . . Lupinus nanus, (what a pity that gardeners do not sow large breadths of this very beautiful dwarf lupin every autumn!) has quite a different character when allowed to grow on slowly all the winter. It would do to plant out in April, where Lobelia racemosa, or any dwarf blue plant, was too tall late in the season. It blooms from May till the middle or end of August, from seeds sown about the middle or end of September, provided the plants are not allowed to ripen any seeds. . . . Silene pendula, S. compacta, and S. Schafta, are the best of the catchflies, and are always best from autumn sowing;. The Virginian stock flowers in April, if sown in autumn, and all the varieties of the branching larkspur, will bloom most part of the summer, if sown early in September.""" This long extract gives not only advice for the work to be done at the season of which we are now writing, but it suggests plans for spring and summer planting, carrying our minds forward to those brighter seasons, and so allaying the regret we feel as, week by week, we see our flowers fading away! -

"Autumnal leaves and flowerets! lingering last - Pale, sickly children of the waning year! A lovelier race shall yet succeed ye here, When nature, (her long wintry torpor past,) O'er the brown woods and naked earth doth cast Her vernal mantle."

Another hopeful autumn labour is the planting bulbs for spring flowering. Early in October this work should be commenced, for the weather soon begins to get unsettled; wet days prevent amateur gardening, and so it is wise to take the early part of the month for planting crocuses, snowdrops, scillas, late and early tulips, and, if we like to risk the winter, ranunculuses and double anemones. These last are, however, better deferred till February, as a severe winter kills them, if a wet autumn has set them a-growing, and they have got their leaves above ground. The only other work that remains is lifting and potting the greenhouse plants, cutting down flowering steins, dividing roots of herbaceous plants, transplanting shrubs, and the usual routine occupations of putting beds and borders in winter order. Stocks and wall-flowers for spring flowering should be planted out now, and everything about the garden premises made and kept as tidy as possible. Still, - look forward hopefully as we will, work cheerily on as we may, and enjoy as we can and ought the many beauties that autumn brings - her bright, clear days, the brilliant colouring of tree and shrub, the rich array of scarlet berries on rowan, rose, and hawthorn, - still, there is no denying that, late in autumn, our hearts feel saddened at the decay and death around us, and most people feel it a season of pensive retrospect rather than of cheerful looking forward. Rain and wind do their wild work among trees and flowers, the walks are littered with damp decaying leaves, and the last lingering blossoms hang wet and heavy on their stalks, and Tennyson's mournfully beautiful lines are realized vividly as we stroll around our garden, -